It is amazing that for a people who find my name far too exotic to pronounce properly (Pallo Kermingan?) the word "chikungunya" presents no significant problems. It seems like just the other day the Ministry of Health was reporting the figure of infected people at three; now that official statistic is 43 reported cases.The operative word here is "reported." In the online world, far many more have written of being diagnosed with this virulent virus.
The name chikungunya is an African language word meaning "to become contorted." Based on the accounts of the withering effects of the virus, contorted seems a fair depiction of the wrath this illness can levy on its victims.
Chikungunya shares a sinister relationship with dengue fever. Both are transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and symptoms mirror each other. ChikV, however, is like dengue 2.0, far more punishing. Victims describe persistent pain which can ravage the entire body, coupled with bouts of fever that can make a hot water bottle feel like an ice pack. The disease tosses in a rash, and stiffness in the joints for good measure.
Most of the current literature suggests that symptoms can persist for up to seven days, but some people have reported being down for the count for more than a fortnight. Even worse, just when you think the illness has run its course the symptoms can resurface in two or three months. In such cases the disease can return new and improved, leaving the victim with health complications that can last for years.
Naturally, this virus has the population extremely concerned.
There is no "mosquito season" in this country. Mosquitoes are a permanent fixture in our landscape. One public health expert recently stated that chikungunya will probably become endemic in T&T, just like dengue. In other words, this disease will not burn itself out over a period of time, but it will always exist.
Sales of insect spray, mosquito coils and citronella are probably soaring right now. I often find myself sitting petrified in my apartment, clutching the highest-voltage mosquito racquet that China could muster. It absolutely vaporises mosquitoes and I'm beginning to suspect that it would make light work of a pigeon.
We will never appreciate how our negligence contributes to the aggressive spread of the chikungunya virus. No one can say the public hasn't been sufficiently educated about the need to remove breeding environments from in and around the home.
To a considerable extent, however, the success of chikungunya is another symptom of our societal dysfunction. Vacant lots are left untended until completely colonised by towering stands of razor grass. The ownership of the land is always unknown, the responsibility for its maintenance unclaimed. Mosquitoes breed prodigiously in unkempt lots. Even worse, the tall grass often obscures old tyres, barrels, and containers; ideal receptacles for the water that gives these miniature socouyants life.
Removing the mosquito's habitat as a control strategy is infinitely more effective than palliative spraying. Mosquitoes have a flight range of one mile from their breeding grounds. Any home within a one-mile radius of an overgrown lot is within the cross-hairs of chikungunya.It is also my understanding that under the Yellow Fever Act such irresponsible landowners can be charged according to the law. The act empowers ordinary citizens to report such individuals to the police.
I can see your eyes rolling in the back of your head. Yes, yes I know, police won't respond to a report of bandits hiding in overgrown bush, far less mosquitoes.The point here is, the existence of an act to specifically address concerns associated with orphaned land aptly demonstrates how long we have been confronted with the perils of vector-borne diseases. After all this time we still can't get our act together.
In civilised societies like Canada and the United States, legitimate landowners can be evicted if the land they occupy isn't maintained in accordance with the standards established by local government authorities. Several warnings are issued, then the law is sent out to bundle up the offending individual. The land can eventually be auctioned while life begins anew in a van for the evicted party.
In this country, the only way to inspire action in local government bodies is venting the spleen on the TV and radio. Regional corporations always seem more familiar with where their responsibility ends rather than where it begins. Invariably, keeping abandoned lots free of bush falls into the former category.I have no doubt that local government bodies are empowered to attend to these lots in the interest of public health, but that money is far better spent on useless staff retreats in Tobago.
We keep mosquitoes as our neighbours, then fulminate over a health crisis in which personal responsibility seems an entirely remote affair.It should be patently clear to all that putting as much distance between us and mosquitoes is the best way to save ourselves from the crucifixion of chikungunya.